S1E4 - Dan Giusti & A New Role For Chefs

There's no trip advisor for school food? I mean, I'll tell you right now, if you have TikTok, that's what it is. If you have TikTok, anytime there's an opportunity for students to give written feedback on school food, watch out. Hi, I'm Melina Shannon DiPietro, the executive director of MAD. This is our new podcast, MAD Talks. For our first season, our founder, René Redzepi, who is also the chef and owner of Restaurant Noma, sits down each week with an iconic speaker from our signature event, MAD Symposium, to talk about food, creativity, and the future we hope to build. In this episode, René reconnects with Dan Giusti, his former head chef and the founder of Brigaid. Brigade is an amazing organization that harnesses the knowledge and skills of chefs to create healthy school meals for over half a million children every day. Dan Giusti. Hello, sir. How are you doing, René? I'm doing well. How are you? I can't complain, you know, feeling good. So, Dan, you know, this is a podcast of me asking questions, which is a bit funny because we work so close together, and we've traveled together, and we've done all sorts of things. But it is a while since we lived or, excuse me, worked together and actually kind of spent time together. So, if I say things that to you are, hey, why is he asking me this? He already knows, you know, because we need to kind of unpack Dan Giusti a little bit. Put a little context to the story. Yes. No, I get that. So, if we start at the beginning, which is me coming into the kitchen, and suddenly this two-meter-tall, lanky fellow is standing in the tiny kitchen of Noma, and I go over to Matt Orlando, and I ask him, who's that? And he says, this is Dan Giusti. He's been emailing me. And he's the head chef of a very fancy place. He left that restaurant as the head chef. And he says, I'm staying until there's work for me. Yeah. That's correct. That's how I remember this. That's correct. Yeah, that's how I remember it, too. All right. So, what happened? Who was the Dan before you came to Noma? Tell me a little bit about that. Yeah. Yeah. I think the Dan before Noma was kind of a conflicted guy. You know, I was trying to, like, figure out what to do. I think, you know, I got into cooking at a young age because I come from a big Italian family, and I think I saw what it was like to be kind of adored if you knew how to cook. You know, I have people in my family who are like, they are the ones. And I say it here all the time. I know Thanksgiving is not an international holiday. But I always say here, like, when you find out, like, who's hosting Thanksgiving, sometimes you're really excited to go to their house and eat the food, and sometimes you're not, and you think you might get sick, you know? So, you know, the people in my house, in my family who could cook, it was like these people are the favorite people in our family. And it's because they knew how to take care of people through food. And I think that's really what spurred me wanting to cook. And I got into cooking when I was 15. And really quickly, I was like, this could be a career. So, I got a job. And I just loved being in the kitchen. You know, I loved the idea of working in the kitchen. I love the atmosphere of the kitchen. And, you know, as a 15-year-old, you're hearing conversations about things that you're not hearing in high school. You know, people talking about their marriages and what happened here. And, you know, so I thought that was neat. And then I worked up a little, you know, finally I was, like, doing some things where I was actually cooking some food. You know, as I made my way through high school, I was, like, 16, 17. And I would cook something, and I would hear someone liked it. And it's, like, the best feeling. Like, you make something, and they like it. So, for me, that was it. I was like, this is it. I want to cook. And I applied to one culinary school. I got into culinary school. And, like, for my mom, that was the only way I was getting into cooking was I couldn't just go work in a restaurant. I had to – it had to be more formal. So I went to culinary school. And as soon as I got to culinary school, it really changed my view on what I needed to do. As someone who was ambitious and wanted to be successful, there was a path for me. What was success back then to you? Success back then was really – this was, like, 2002, 2003. It was working in a big-time, well-known restaurant for a chef that was well-known. And prior to going to culinary school, I wasn't really exposed to that. It wasn't like now where you've got high school kids who, like, know about chefs from all over the world. And I didn't know any chefs. And I worked in a pretty modest restaurant, a very modest restaurant in high school. So then suddenly I'm like, there's all these big-time restaurants and chefs out there. And in culinary school, I was about an hour and a half away from New York City. So there's definitely, like, a big focus on, like, a lot of the restaurants in New York. You know, the Daniel Baloo's and, like, you know, that was, like, the time. It was, like, you need to go work in a restaurant like that. Or the other thing that was just kind of coming on, and you can kind of compare it to now, you know, having a YouTube channel or being on social media, was the Food Network. So it was like, oh, you could go on TV. So as soon as I got to school, it was like I started meeting people who were more exposed to these things than I was. And kind of the point was we had, like, an externship or an internship six months into school. And as soon as people were at school, they were already talking about this. Where are you going to go do your externship? Where are you going? And I was like, I have no idea. And that's when I started really looking into, like, restaurants and chefs and where could I go work and where should I go work. And that's really just framed. Like, at that point, I was 18. That was, like, framed my mindset for some time to come. So you went to school and you went to work in New York at Charlie Palmer's restaurant. That's right. That's right. You were, like, the main guy at that point. Right. And then you also ended up in Las Vegas at Guy Savoy. Yeah, right. Like a three-star restaurant. That was probably my first, like, exposure to, like, the next level. Like, Oriole, what Charlie Palmer's restaurant was cool. And that was my first exposure to, like, fine dining. But it was still, like, pretty high volume. You know, it was, like, 200 covers of nights. I remember, like, when I went there, I didn't even know what foie gras was. And I was on, like, this hot appetizer station. I remember we would have, like, six pieces of foie gras cooking at the same time. Like, one in the pan in the oven, two on the stovetop, one in, like, the broiler. You know, you were just kind of, like, cooking wherever. But in Las Vegas, that was, like, you know, there was, like, carpet in the kitchen. You know, everyone had, like, really nice chef coats. It was, like, a beautiful kitchen. That was the next level. That was when I really got a taste of, like, okay, this is out there, too. This is, like, a different thing. And then you, you know, fast forward a little bit, you end up being the head chef of a big, very well-established place in Washington, D.C. What was it called again? 1789. 1789. Making good money. Yeah. You know, you're on the path of, like, becoming sort of head chef career. You could have gone on to perhaps be F&B chef at a hotel chain. You know, it was going pretty well. Yeah. Really good. It's actually – I was having this conversation with someone yesterday. It was actually the most money I've ever made in a salary still. I don't pay myself much now because I run the company. But it was, like, a good amount of money. Like, I was getting paid very well. Is that 12 years ago, 14 years ago or something? And that's not even, like, taking into account inflation. It was just the most money. And I also felt like I got paid very well when I was at Noma. It was just a very high salary. And it was just because it was kind of a fine dining restaurant, if you will, supported by a very big company. So, yeah, I was there. I had – I owned a condo in Washington, D.C. I had a car. You know, I was like, yeah, I was doing well. Like, for all things considered, there was a PR team that was, you know, getting me nominated for awards that I shouldn't be nominated for. I think that's probably what actually spurred me. Is that what PR teams are for, right? I mean, pretty much. I mean, here, I don't know how it works everywhere. But I will say I know from my personal experience, I was getting nominated for, like, Best Chef in Washington, D.C. when I was 25. And I was not. I should not have been getting nominated for those awards. That's all I'm saying. That's amazing. Yes. But, you know, so, yes, it was a very good situation for me. And I think a lot of people would have been, like, keep riding this train. And, you know, I'm sure it would have worked out well. You know, it probably would have done pretty well going that journey. I think so. So what in your mind said, no, I'm going to go to Denmark and be a low paid? I mean, you were there as an intern. You actually had no pay at first. Right. Yeah. I was committed to that. I was okay with that. I think, you know, I think in general, and I say this to people because I think it's important to set the context because people just think, like, oh, I'm this, like, big risk taker. And, like, I'm not. Like, in my normal life, I'm a very – well, I would say in my normal life, like, day to day, like, I drive. The speed limit. You know, I was kind of silly like that. But there has been moments with my career where I just knew. I was, like, I'm not going to be happy. And I need to – I need – this has to happen. Like, so when I was there, I think the PR thing was actually one of those things. Like, I was getting nominated for these awards, and I was, like, I don't believe in this. Like, I'm not that good. What we're doing here is not that good. I'm trying, but it's not that good. And I don't deserve this. And I also had this itch. Like, don't get me wrong. I think the way you put it is the best way you could put it. It's a well-established restaurant. You know, it wasn't a restaurant pushing boundaries. It was not a restaurant that was, like, set up to operate at the highest level. It was a restaurant that was very successful, feeding people really tasty food, and they enjoyed it. And for me, I was in charge, and I was young, and I was thinking to myself, I'm like, I wanted to know, like, could I operate at the highest levels? And you could, it turned out. Yeah, and that was – it changed my life. It changed my life in so many ways. And I think everybody, everybody – if anyone listening to this who is in that situation, if you've never challenged yourself to see if you could do – like, it changes your whole life. Because you can see what you can do, what you're – like, I would have never been able to – not to get ahead, but I would have never have seen my own potential unless I came to NOMA and was pushed to the point where I didn't know I could even do that myself. Like, you put yourself in an environment that is operating at a much higher level than you're used to, and you have to match that. But the easiest thing is always to sort of give up, I guess. The problem is if you give – the first time you give up, it's really hard. But then the second time, it's a little bit easier. And the third time, much easier. And then by the 20th time, it's as easy as nothing. You just do it again and again. But you never did that. So now, if I take over a little bit and speak to our experience, because here you were, an intern, very quickly, boing. Was it within a year you were head chef? It was like eight months I was told that I would become the next head chef. Exactly. And at this point, we had several sous-chefs in our team that's been there five, six, seven, eight years. And you were just such an incredible talent because you were so clear in your visions, what you want, and so on and so forth. And then you really took our team and molded it into – I think what we're seeing today is the best version of what you want it to be. You started molding it. Yeah. I really, really wholeheartedly believe that. We are the best place we've ever been, but you started shaping it into that. And so head chef at Noma, we're at the height of our – I don't know, what should we call it, fame or the hype of Noma was at this sort of frantic level, I would say. And what happens to you? I mean, I remember – we won't mention names, but I remember there was one of the great billionaires of the world that wanted to open restaurants with you. You had everything. You could do anything in the world. And so while you don't speed on the freeway, then you decide, no, I need something else. What makes you do such a decision to not just say, okay, hey, here's all the money. I'm going to open a chain of Italian restaurants, make a lot of money, retire in Florida or whatever Americans do these days. What were you searching for? Yeah, I think it was a couple of things. I think, first of all, I had a lot of confidence in myself because of Noma and the position it put me in. I didn't feel the need to do this, that, or the other thing based on what people thought. I could really look inside and say, what do I want to do? That was part of it. And the other part of it was, honestly, I felt, being at Noma, I felt like I was part of something. I don't feel, I know I was, part of something very special and very big. And I didn't want that to end. And, you know, one thing I saw at Noma was I saw people leave and come back and I saw people leave and come back. And, of course, they came back because it's a special place and you're doing something exceptional. And I think if you're a part of that and you want to be a part of that and you leave and you're not a part of that anymore, it's a tough feeling to have. And for me, I knew I wanted to build something special and important and big. And I knew it wasn't going to be a Noma. You know, there's not going to ever be another Noma. And I... But how did you know it wasn't going to... Why didn't you just say, I'm going to try? Well, I think a couple of reasons. I think, one, I was surrounded by people at Noma, obviously, you included, that I just... And I will say it all the time, like, I never was surrounded by people that I had more respect for in terms of how talented they were. And I knew I wasn't that in terms of, like, you know, I wasn't going to open a restaurant that was going to, you know, be that kind of place. Could I open a three-mission star restaurant that I could make sure that things were done consistently every day? It would be kind of boring. Yeah, probably. I could probably do that. I could probably do that. But that wouldn't be too exciting. So for me, I was looking at, like, my skill set and what that was like. And then pairing it with this kind of this idea going all the way back to the beginning of, like, what do I want to do? And I knew what I... I knew I wanted to feed... I wanted to cook for a lot of people. I was like, that's what excites me. I was like, if we're going to do something big, it's going to be feeding a lot of people. And it's going to be people that need that food and depend on that food. Because I guess for me, it was this idea, again, back to, like, work, like, cooking in a family setting. Like, when you cook at home for your family, you're cooking for them every day. And by cooking for them every day, you really have a true impact on their lives, like, in a really big way. And I wanted to do that. I wanted to have an impact on people's lives through food. So I started thinking about, like, how do you cook for a lot of people? And how do you cook for a lot of people really often, you know, if not every day? And that's like, that was like the kind of the light bulb moment where I was trying to figure out how do you do that? That's kind of what started it all. And then you went back home to America. Yes. So really, even prior, you know, like, you know, the weeks leading up to me finishing at Noma, and obviously, you know, we talked, I think, six, seven, eight months before I actually left that I was going to leave. But, you know, I, I had started, like, technically incorporated Brigaid as a company. And I didn't really know what that was going to look like. But at that time, I announced and there was like a, you know, a newspaper article about it that we were going to place Brigaid, we were going to place chefs into public schools. And that was the idea. That was it. That was the extent of the idea when I returned to the United States. But let me stop you there. What actually is the idea of putting chefs into public schools? Yeah. I mean, for me, it's just the idea that public school programs, public school food service programs, or other institutional food service programs, like in prisons, hospitals, they're food service programs, they produce food, they're cooking food. And there's not a lot of chefs around. And it just doesn't make sense. It just forget about forget about the idea of feeding people who need it that are dependent on it, just for a second. There are these giant food service programs, some of the districts, school districts who work and have 150, you know, $150 million annual budgets to produce food. And there's not one chef involved in that. And in my mind, it's just like, well, that doesn't make sense. So you hear that. And then you're like, well, okay, I'm not saying that a chef is going to come in and, you know, solve everything. A lot of the difficulties of working in these programs, it's very bureaucratic and whatnot. But if you put a chef who's trained to cook and trained to create systems to create efficiency and so on, you put them into a kitchen with kitchen equipment, and with people who are cooking food, they're probably going to be able to make it a little better. And that was really the idea. And it's still the idea. And when you say a little better, it's better from your perspective, which is deliciousness. You know, you go back to your childhood saying, I want to feed you so you feel happy, right? As opposed to better in, okay, now the nutrition is optimized. It doesn't taste very well. But you know, you have one gram of protein more. Sure. And that's a very polarizing conversation here. And we definitely stand on the side of if and I say this all the time, and it's not like some revelation, it's like the food's not nutritious if a kid throws it away. So we are very focused on making the food as tasty as possible. Obviously, keeping in mind, you know, in a very basic sense, what we're trying to do in many places is a lot of the food being served might be prepackaged or preprocessed. We're trying to move more towards whole foods, whole ingredients, bringing in fruits and vegetables, bringing in proteins and cooking them on site, which, you know, is easier said than done. And it's not just about chefs coming in and like, oh, we're like solving the problem. These there's no training. If you have a group of people, these people, there's we work with people in school kitchens have done it for 40, 50 years. And they actually used to cook 20 years ago, 30 years ago. They did cook. They cooked food. And then, you know, regulations and things changed in the United States that have actually, per your point, Renee, you know, we have to meet parameters, nutritional guidelines. Our budget is about $1.50, $1.60 per meal. So budget's tight. But the nutritional guidelines, the parameters, you know, they're in place to ensure the food is nutritious. But it makes it so challenging. Like you can't just cook food. There are these people in these kitchens who used to just cook food, make good food for kids. But to do that now, you have to follow very strict recipes. You have to document those recipes. It is a very difficult thing to do. And to do it without anyone who has been trained to cook or trained to create recipes, it almost makes it impossible. And that's why you end up in a place where a lot of school districts are like, let's just kind of make this as easy as possible and make sure kids get fed. Yeah, of course. Impossible, you say. And it must have felt that in the beginning. How was it in the beginning? Tell us, you moved to a tiny little town called New London. Yeah. Because you got an opportunity to take over the school there. What was the obstacles? Tell me about that. First of all, you know, New London, it's a small town. It's about there's about thirty five hundred kids in the school district, six schools, one in four kids there under the poverty line. So when you're there and you're going to take over the food, what does poverty line mean? Basically, it's a metric that says that the household income means that it statistically means that they don't really have enough money to live their life like like you should be able to. And to eat as well. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. That means that you. So they eat at school. Exactly. So you are. So really, it puts it puts the pressure on on these school food service programs, not the pressure, but also it shows how crucial they are because I was here. And again, just to paint context in West Virginia yesterday and talking to a bunch of people and where I am right now, they were just a lot of people. A lot of community members were just talking and saying how these kids, when they eat lunch at school on a Tuesday, that might be the last meal they have before they eat the breakfast at school on a Wednesday. So it's just it's very important. So anyway, we, you know, I show up in New London, really not understanding how this model is going to work. We put an ad out to hire chefs because that's the whole model. We find two people. We find two chefs. They're still on the team to this day. And we get to work. And it's like the first thing we said to ourselves is we're not going to change the whole menu. We're going to take a reasonable approach. But then we started looking at the menu. We started looking in the coolers and the refrigerators and the freezers, a lot of frozen food. And we're like, ah, we're chefs. Like, we can't serve this. Like, we can't serve this. We can't serve this. We can't serve that. And before you know it, we changed the whole menu. And this the timeline of all this happening is like during the summertime leading up to the first school year. So we're kind of doing this in a silo. Like, we're not really consulting with anyone. We're like there and just changing the whole menu. So then the staff, they don't work all summer. They show up in August and the whole menu is changed. And we put all these things on the menu that we were happy with. And, you know, we took lots of pictures and we had them all on social media. We came up with this for at the time it was $1.25. And people are like, oh, my God. And I was the chef at Noma a year ago. And people are just going crazy, you know. And then the first day of school comes. And really, even before the staff were like, okay, the kids aren't going to eat any of this food that you've come up with. But we'll bear with you here. And we'll kind of just like do it. First day of school comes. And we wanted to do tacos, you know. And instead of doing your average like Tuesday taco night in America, that's like, you know, a flour tortilla, ground beef, lettuce, tomato that like every kid enjoys. We're like, no, like, again, we're chefs. We need to like take it. We need to be a more authentic, whatever that means. So, you know, we get corn tortillas. And of course, because of the parameters we follow and the budget we have, we got the shittiest corn tortillas that a human could buy. And we're also on the East Coast. So you're not just buying like good corn tortillas all over the place. They were like, you know, frozen in a block in a bag. That's how we got the corn tortillas. We got corn tortillas. We marinated chicken, chicken thighs. And then we cooked it and cut it. And that was actually probably the one thing that kids enjoyed. We topped the tacos with like diced onion and cilantro. And of course, raw onion and cilantro. Ridiculous. We did rice and beans, which were not a good version of rice and beans. We were using brown rice because we had to at the time. And it just we didn't know how to cook brown rice properly to the point where it wasn't just like either undercooked or overcooked. And then I think the real revelation was the pineapple popsicle. So when we started, we knew we had to serve a fruit every day. That's part of the National School Lunch Program. You have to serve a fruit. And most fruit you see served is just a whole fruit. It's just an apple. And that's what you see in the garbage can. That's what's usually in the garbage can is just that whole apple. Because kids don't really like it. They don't have time to eat a whole apple. If you're five years old and you're missing three teeth, you're not eating a whole apple. So instead of just saying, you know what, let's just cut the fruit. Let's just cut it. We had to, I had to, I had to skip 10 steps ahead and say, well, that's not enough. Everything we do has to be like prepared. We have to prepare everything, you know? So one of the things we did was the pineapple popsicle, which we just basically took a pineapple. We peeled it vertically. We cut it into 16th. So like real narrow wedges. We put it on a, we put it on a popsicle stick. We brushed it with lime juice. We seasoned it with lime zest and chili powder and we froze it. And that was the fruit. And I just remember outside of everything else going wrong with the rest of the meal. Like that day in the cafeteria, it was like every kid had taken the popsicle stick out of the pineapple and used it to like scrape everything off the pineapple. So they could just eat the fresh pineapple. You know, like all they wanted was just fresh cut pineapple. And, you know, then with the tacos, the tortilla just fell apart. I mean, no one wanted cilantro. Nobody wanted onions. It was a disaster. It was like literal. People are like, this is terrible. It's like. So. So. So the kids said it was terrible. What did everyone else say? What did the parents say? Well, it's funny because. We kind of continued doing that. That was the first day and it was a disaster and you would think, let's change it up. But we continue doing that for a while because everybody was excited about it. And they're just like, well, they're just kids. They're just kids. You know, like they'll get used to it. And there's this thing that people always say and it drives me crazy. It's like science. You know, they say like a kid has to try something 17 times or some shit like that until they like it. I'm like, look, when you serve when you serve food to a thousand kids in a high school and they hate it, you're not going to try it 17 times. They like it. So like. So we kept doing it and we're like posting stuff on social media and everyone's excited. And then so, like, again, the parents are fine. The school administration was excited. And I'm sure there were a lot of parents that were not fine. I'm sure a lot of parents had a lot of kids coming home that were hungry because they were choosing not to eat the food. But we didn't hear that. We didn't hear it, whether it's because people were shielding that criticism from us or not. And then, honestly, there was a turning point. And the turning point was, and this is why I kind of painted the context of the school district, is I remember very specifically one day. So peanut butter and jelly sandwich, that's a big thing in the United States. Now we can't even really serve peanut butter. We have to serve like sun butter, which is like sunflower seed butter, which is not very tasty at all because of so many peanut allergies. But peanut butter and jelly sandwich is like a staple for kids. There are kids who, like, I feel like in this country until they're, you know, 15 years old maybe are not trying many other things besides a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And I decided at one point that because in any given school we were in, 500, 600 kids, we were selling like 200 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And instead of thinking to myself, well, that's because they don't like any of the other food we're serving, I was like, you know what? Take that off the menu, and it's going to force them to try these new things that we're coming up with. And then what happened? I remember very specifically one day at this elementary school, I was in the cafeteria, and there was a kid. He was probably seven, eight years old. He had his head down on the table. He was crying. And there was a woman. They have folks that monitor the cafeteria, and I asked her, I was like, is he okay? And she's like, oh, there's just nothing he wants to eat here. And he was a kid that, you know, and at each school, and it's heartbreaking. You can see it. You see kids come to school, their clothes are dirty. The situation at home is not good. And this was one of those students who you know he depended on the food from school. And here he is literally hungry but choosing not to eat because there's nothing for him there. And it was like, what are we doing? Like, what are we doing here? And literally from that moment until now, we changed our whole outlook on, like, you know, you asked, what do the parents think? What do the teachers think? What does the administration? Who cares? It doesn't matter what anybody thinks. What do the kids think? Are they happy? Are they eating? Do they feel good about the food? We lost sight of it. And, Rene, I always say one of the big differences between, like, having come from Noma to working in a school is, like, and this is a hard transition for a lot of the chefs, is, like, at Noma, people are coming to eat the food of Noma, the vision. You guys work hard to put this food together. And people are blown away. And they're, like, they travel all over the world to eat it. And in these schools, though, they don't have a choice. Like, they can't choose where they're eating. And it's, you know, hundreds of kids in one room. And we were treating it the same way. Like, we're going to come up with food that we think is really delicious and not take enough consideration into what the kids think. And then that's what happened. And I'm not saying that we can't still come up with food that we're really excited about and happy about because we can. But we just need to be a lot more thoughtful and deliberate as to the taste of the children. Yeah. So what's harder, you think, being a head chef of a three-Michelin star or being the head chef of a canteen that feeds school kids in America? Yeah. I'd say the challenges are, you know, they're both really high on both ends. And unfortunately, I think, you know, I think the bigger difference is the folks that work in school kitchens just don't really get any credit. You know, I think for them, like, even when we have a good day and we feel like we served a meal and a lot of kids eat it. And it's very rare that a student, like, makes their way back to the cafeteria to say, like, wow, that food was great. Like, they just go on with their day. There's no trip advisor for school food? I mean, I'll tell you right now. Yeah, it's TikTok. That's what it is if you go on TikTok. It's just, I mean, anytime there's an opportunity for students to give written feedback on school food, watch out. Even if they like the food. They'll, you know, everybody wants to be cool. Everybody wants to be funny. We receive a lot of harsh feedback in places we work. And what's the harshest feedback you've received? I'm so curious. Because, Dan, you know, we get feedback, too, sometimes. But if a kid don't like it, what do they actually, how do they say it? I mean, the things, I'll tell you some funny ones. I mean, in one of the schools that we're in, I was there with one of our other chefs. And we were kind of just, like, talking to a group of kids, high school kids. And they were like, you guys are actually chefs? Like, I was like, yeah, we're chefs. Like, they were, like, so confused. They were literally confused. Because you think, too, that if we were in the school, like, your assumption is, like, people know it. Like, we can, our initiative, we can have a chef in the school. And students would never even know. Like, they're not paying attention to it like that. They're not thinking about it like that. We had a thing where it's pretty stereotypical. This was our first year in New London. Pretty stereotypical. And, like, a lot of movies, you see someone running for student government. And they're on a stage, you know, they're, like, 15. And they're, like, I'm going to make the food better. And everyone cheers. Well, the first year we were there, the chef, Ryan, who's on our team, he was the chef at the high school. And he's, like, you got to get over here, like, now. This is our first year in the spring. And I came over there. And I go in the auditorium. And there was a girl. So this was after we had been there for, like, seven months. There was a girl. Literally, her whole campaign was based around bringing the old food back. Because the food we had served was terrible. I've received emails from students saying that we've ruined. I think the worst email I ever received was a student said, you've ruined our food. But the worst part about it was she said, not only have you ruined our food, but you've put the ladies who work in the cafeteria in a bad situation because we know this food is not their idea. They have to serve it, though. And kids don't like it. And that was, like, the most insightful. It's so true. So true. Like, we were coming up with the ideas. They had to serve it, even though they knew, too, that the kids weren't going to like it. And they had to deal with that. I mean, we – and then, you know, kids are – I hate to say it, but, like, in some of the high schools, like, kids will literally just say, like, this is fucking shit. How hard has it been to get to where you are today? Did you ever feel like quitting? I don't think I've – I've never felt like quitting. That's for sure. But I have felt – and I've read about this, like, you do feel there have been moments during time where I felt like I wasn't productive. I almost felt burnt out because progress was – it was like spinning wheels. It was, like, didn't feel like we were moving forward. And that's what I was saying when we first got on here. Like, it's the opposite right now. Like, we're in a really good place. And I think from 2016 when I started Brigade to really right after the – like, up to the pandemic, it was a pretty slow – you know, we had six people on our team. That was it for that period of time. And then, you know, now we have over 70. We'll probably have 90 people on our team by the end of the year. It just kind of took off after that. So, for me, if you didn't see the progress, like, if I didn't see progress, I'm like, that's when I was like, what are we doing? Like, is this going to go anywhere? And also, I think a battle for me since the beginning, and it's a point of frustration for me, and I don't let it bother me too much now, but we're seeing it more than ever, is our demand for chefs in schools has actually surpassed our ability to easily find really good chefs to take these jobs. And it's pretty crazy, especially considering what we pay. You know, we pay more than restaurants pay. We give full benefits, great schedule. And it's still really difficult to get good, like, not difficult, because we always end up finding the good chefs, but it just takes longer than it should. And to me, that is a point of frustration that that's like the other mission. Like, part of the mission is, obviously, the main mission is, like, changing the food in these institutional food spaces. The other is, like, getting chefs to consider this. I'm not saying every chef needs to work in a school, but like me, like, I think I was made to work in this setting. Like I said earlier, like, I wasn't made to, you know, be the most creative chef out there. And, like, that's for me. And I just feel like there's probably a lot of chefs out there like that. But they didn't have the experience that I had at Noma to give me the confidence to say, like, I don't care what anybody thinks. Because, you know, I always tell the story, like, you know, if I'm out and about or, like, I've been places with my mom and, you know, someone, we meet someone. And they're like, oh, I heard, you know, I heard you're a chef. And I'm like, yeah. And they're like, where are you a chef? And I'm like, well, you know, I work, you know, I work in schools. And my mom's like, and my mom's, you know, she's more proud than she could ever be of me. But she's like, yeah, but before, you know, he was a chef at Noma, you know, because she knows what people will think. So I think that, you know, it's that stigma of, like, if you're a chef in a school, like, what does that mean? Like, are you a good chef? Like, and it's a shame. It's such a shame that it is like that, isn't it? Yeah, right. You know, because the numbers, you know, when we talk about who makes an impact, how many, just give us the numbers. What's Brigade doing daily? Yeah, so right now, I mean, it's ever changing because every day we're kind of, we're picking up new partnerships. But right now we have about 70 chefs in eight states and we're pushing, I think we're over the 500,000 person mark a day. So, like, affecting more than 500,000 students a day. And that number's going quick, like, every day, you know, because when we pick up a new school district, we could be talking about 20,000 more students, 30,000 more students. So that number is kind of, is getting there. Like, we don't talk about, you know, you hear a lot of organizations talk about meals and things like that. But for me, it's more about, like, how many people are we potentially affecting on a daily basis? And now we're over that half million mark. And I think there's no stopping us in terms of, I would say in the next couple of years, we could, I would say we'd clear a million easily and then continue from there. Aside from finding team members or chefs, what are some of the difficult things that prevents it from growing even faster? You know, what are some of the hurdles that you keep encountering that would make everything so much easier? Yeah, I think probably the biggest thing that would, if we had to really target slowing growth and just this initiative in general, is money. It's the ability for school districts to pay us for a chef. And when we first started, we were doing deals with districts that we were losing money on. And we've built, we've built up the idea of, you know, I used to have conversations with people and they would be like in school districts. And as I, we used to have a chef. And my first question to them is, what did you pay that person? And they're like, $25,000 a year. I'm like, okay, we're talking about different, different levels of experience here. Like in my world, the least you're going to pay someone who I would refer to as a chef is going to be the least $60,000, $70,000. When we're hiring chefs today to place in new partnerships in a good portion of our positions, starting salaries, $90,000 a year. Plus full benefits, which is about 30% of that. So we're already up to $120,000 that it just costs us to have that person. When I first started having conversations with people about placing chefs, I would say these numbers and they'd be like, what? And the person that I would be speaking to is the food service director who, in most cases, in a lot of districts across the country, they get paid appropriately. Like it's a big job. Like you could be in charge of a hundred schools. Yet when I was having the conversation about what a chef would make, $80,000, they're like, whoa, that's too much money. So over the last years, we've built that up. Like, no, no, if you want to hire a chef, that's going to be the kind of person you want to make change in your school district. This is the going rate for a chef. So we've done a good job of kind of building that market, if you will. But that's in certain places. So every time we go to a new state or a new place, it's like that's they're like, whoa, like it's like sticker shock. It's like that is a big sum of money to hire a chef. And don't get me wrong. Like I'm super and we're super focused on value. So I think I also think when people think of chefs, they think they're just like someone who's going to come in and like cook up some recipes. They don't think of them as like very resourceful, pragmatic people who bring a tremendous amount of value and work very hard. And all of our partners see that once the chefs get on the ground. But I would say the biggest limitation is is just that right now, that if we talk to a new school district in a place we've never worked before in a state, I should say we've never worked before. And there's no reference point as to the value a chef can provide. But how do you then prove the value? What is the value? That's a great question. So I think that probably segues into another challenge that we're actively working on right now. So we're not really set up to measure, you know, very kind of day to day metrics as to like, first of all, it's very difficult to say like, OK, if a student starts eating like this at school, you know, people are always like, can you track academic results based on? It's like, first of all, the lunch. Well, people, you know, that's what people want to hear. That's what the government wants to hear. It's like, well, it probably would take several years for their eating habits to change. And then from there, maybe that will start to change the way they live their life and maybe I could, you know, things like that. So anyway, we're not really in a position to do that. So our the way I'd say our success is communicated right now is word of mouth from the people who run these programs. They're like, this person came in. We've changed our menu. We've increased scratch cooking. We've actually saved money in the process by doing it. Our participation in meals have gone up because that's the thing, too. We see those kind of savings. We go in. We make the operation more efficient. We're not wasting food. We're forecasting better, meaning we're not preparing too much food. We should have been preparing less. We are transitioning to whole foods, which, you know, oftentimes really drives the food cost down versus like pre-processed things. As you mentioned earlier, Renee, I've never been uber focused on the nutrition piece as much as I've been focused on making sure that kids eat and they enjoy the food. But surely we need to make sure that over time, because we're feeding these kids every day. And in some cases, you have kids who are dependent on school lunch from the time they're five years old to the time they're 18. And what a crazy effect you can have on their health either way, either negatively or positively. So that, I think, for us as a company who wants to get to the next level, which is like, you know, nationwide, every state, maybe, you know, working at a federal level. We need to be able to prove that our work is kind of lending to these more positive nutrition outcomes. I think that's going to be an important piece of it. And then I guess if you're also streamlining and saving some money on top of that, you know? Yes. We have some, we definitely have much, we have information on that of like cases where we can show that money is being actually saved. And that helps us a lot because, of course, like I said, one of the biggest barriers is cost. So if we can justify the cost of adding a chef by offsetting it, by reducing costs elsewhere, then people are like, great, that works for us. Yeah, yeah. And you started in schools, but now you've moved into other fields. And are the meals bad everywhere? Like in all institutions or in all schools? In all institutions. In institutions. Yeah, I think generally, yes, they are. And it's for the same reason, because you face the same challenges. No chefs choose to work in these places. They're under-resourced programs. You know, the other thing about institutions, even though food is such an important part of the function of the institution, it's never the primary function of the institution. You know, in a school, it's teaching kids. It's not providing food. Even though, as we've talked about, the food at a school is an essential function. A prison, you know, the primary function is to incarcerate people, not to feed them. Even though, if they're incarcerated there, the food has a great effect on their rehabilitation and so on. So it's usually under-resourced. So, yeah, everywhere we've gone. So right now, we finished a pilot working in a prison system, a state prison system in Maine. We're seeking out how to continue that work in a prison in California. I continue those conversations. That's definitely a tough one. It's polarizing. A lot of people that I speak to don't necessarily feel as though people who are in prison deserve better food. That's a whole other conversation. But we do work in senior centers, which is, for me, one of the most heartbreaking situations because I do feel like kids, there's a lot of parents advocating for kids. And if parents are not happy about what their kids are eating, you will hear about it. And it's a big story and it's a big thing. You know, older people, nobody advocates for them. Nobody. And, like, where we work in, we're doing our senior center work in Manhattan, the meals, a lot of the meals that are produced get sent to people in their homes. They can't leave their homebound older people for free. It's in it yet, for free. And it's, like, even to the point where the person who delivers that meal statistically in a lot of these cases is the only person that these people will see over the course of a week because they don't have family. They don't have – but nobody's looking out for these people. Nobody's looking out for them. And when you get looking – let me tell you this. So we work in New York City. The nutritional guidelines of the meals in New York City are set by a group called the Department of the Aging. You know, there's a lot of these, like, more politically correct terms for older people. And with the meals we cook, we can't use salt. We can't use physical salt. We can use soy sauce. We can use bouillon cube. We can use things that are loaded with sodium, but we can't use salt. And that's – and why is that? Because someone came up with that idea and nobody's paying attention to it. Nobody cares. But then you start putting chefs in these places and the chef's like, what? This makes no sense. Why would you do that? So, like, that's also how change happens as well. And then we have a chef working now in an organization in Portland, Maine, that is providing food to the homeless and talk about another marginalized group of people who, you know, people aren't really paying attention to. So, those meals are served throughout Portland in centers where homeless people can come and get other services and then they can eat meals. And we have a guy who is working in a really good restaurant in Philadelphia. And now he works there and he makes meals for people who are homeless. And, you know, like, it's important work. And if you put good chefs in these places, real change happens real quick. Dan, when I think of you and you talk about, you know, growing up and watching your family cook and you could feel that that person was loved, the one that cooked. And now you're cooking for 500,000 people. So, you're very loved, Dan Giusti, right now by a lot of people. So, yeah, I hope that, you know, these environments we work in, you know, we don't always hear it. And I try to tell our chefs that, like, you know, it's a hard, it's hard. Like, you're not always, people aren't always thanking you. Most times people aren't. And look, we just started doing this. The people who have been working in these places forever, it's a thankless job. Cafeteria, people who have been working in schools, nobody's saying thank you and they just do it. They show up every day because they know it's important. And I know in our world, like, literally if, like, one person says, like, a student, especially, like, a high school student who, like, is always trying to be cool, they come up to you and they say thank you. Like, this was delicious. Like, that's all it takes. Literally all it takes is, like, one person. And that, so, like, because you know by the nature of these environments, like, not everyone's going to be coming up to you telling you these things. Nor should they have to. It shouldn't be an obligation that they have to thank you when this is the food they have. No, but still. Yeah, but I just think that, like, if you're a kid who has to show up to school every day, for example, like, you have to go to school, it should be a right of yours to get a nice meal. It shouldn't be a thing that you should have to, like, expect. Like, you know, like, you have to go, like, say, but yeah, it would be nice. And when kids do thank us, it's pretty amazing. Luck is necessary, obviously, to get to where you are, a certain amount of luck. But the amount of hard work that you've gone through, and I know you're grinding every day and you're refusing. You're refusing to back down. I know you. And you keep going, keep going, keep going. That's how you get success. And suddenly there's momentum, which you're experiencing right now. And, you know, now you really have a chance to make a big dent into the world of food in a very special way. And so when we're talking about this next symposium, obviously you worked at NOMA, but you also spoke at the symposium many years ago where you explained to the world of cooking, you know, what you're doing and why it's important. And now we're going into a new symposium. We're talking about kind of the future. We're trying to make ourselves think about the future, think about how we plan for the future, have long-term visions that we focus on and not be so determined on just what's right in front of us. Let it be like an accolade or something. And then once you get it, you don't know what actually, what you need to do from there on. What's your dream? What's your dream now for the future? If you look back at a very old, big, long, white beard, hunched over at Christmas, grandkids running around, what are you looking back at and saying, wow? Yeah, I mean, I think I have pretty lofty goals. Let's hear them. Yeah, I think, you know, as I mentioned, the idea of Brigade is really about providing the food we do. And it's also about, like, getting chefs to think about this work. And I think the big picture with that piece is, like, what it means to be a chef. Like, right now, if you had most conversations about being a successful, or maybe it's what it means to be a successful chef, more specifically, most of those conversations now are going to revolve around the same ideas. Like, I was the chef at Noma. The head chef at Noma, people would see that as a huge success, as do I. But I'd also, I meet people all the time who work in institutions who nobody would, it's not even people would look at them as not being successful. They'll look at them as literally being unsuccessful. Like, you're working in an institution, like, you are not doing anything worth talking about. And I'd like to think that when this is all said and done, that's changed completely. That the idea of being a successful chef is different than it is today. It looks different. It feels different. And I think the, you know, kind of going backwards, like, the effect of that will kind of take care of itself. Meaning, if more chefs are just considering this work, whether they're working with Brigaid or not, all these institutions will be better for it. That whole landscape will change entirely. Because if chefs are really considering, if it's less, if it's not a novel idea anymore for a chef to work in an institution, and it's normal. And it's normal for chefs that are successful and ambitious to choose to work in an institution, and they get credit for it. All these things go hand in hand. Then, inherently, all the food in these institutions is going to look very different. So, for me, I think, you know, if you really look at it, that's probably the biggest goal. Because I think chefs play such an important role, the most important role, in how people are fed and how people eat. And the fact that there's such an absence of chefs in the institutional food space is a problem. And if, and I think there's a lot of reasons for that. So, again, if, you know, in 20, 30 years, it's normal for a chef to be like, you know, I just went to culinary school. My dream is to be a chef in a big school district. You know, things are going to change. Things, you know, that would be a big change. So, that's kind of, those are the kind of things that I think about, I would say. Yeah, it's beautiful. And you know why it's beautiful? Because you're not saying, well, you know, I will have 4,000 employees and a $100 million company with a 20% markup. You know, you want different things. And I think you are one of the most remarkable people because you push and you want to make a change. And, you know, you're just living a very, very frugal life to try to make a dent into this world of cooking where nobody even notices it, takes note, perhaps even cares. Because, you know, as you say with the elderly and you're successful, but you're not doing it because you think, okay, here I can actually be rich and retire on an island. And, you know, I don't want to pretend. We've never made any decisions. And maybe for better or for worse that we're about making more money or more profit over actually doing what we think we should be doing and what we're inspired to do, you know. It's amazing. Dan, it's so nice to talk to you because you're so positive. You're so hopeful. You're fueled by this momentum you're in, you know. Despite that, a lot of people are worried what's going on in the world and so on. But you have that energy in you. So this is what we need. And I hope to connect much more with you and hear more about your successes. But for now, Mr. Dan Justy, thank you so much. Thank you. For taking the time, man. My pleasure. It's good to see you. Likewise. We miss you. I text you once in a while. I mean, for the first many years, I missed you every day. Really, I thought about you every day. Now I don't think about you every day, but perhaps it's every second day. I'm happy. I'm happy. And it's so cool to think that things there are just like, you know, as good as they've ever been. That's exciting. It truly is, man. It's such a moment for us as well. Be well. Talk to you soon, man. Thanks so much, René. So now you know, there's one job that's harder than being head chef of a three-Michelin star restaurant. It's being the chef at a school cafeteria. Thanks for listening to MAD Talks. And please come back next week for a new episode with another fascinating speaker from MAD Symposium. This podcast was produced by Sidsel Kaae Nørgaard and made by MAD. To learn more about us and our work within hospitality, make sure to follow us on socials @themadfeed. Sign up for our newsletter or check us out at madfeed.co.